AMBASSADOR'S ARTICLES
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Russia has suspended the implementation of the Russia-US plutonium management and disposition agreement (PMDA). The agreement was signed at a time when our relations with the US were on an upswing. There was considerable hope that the role of crude force in politics would decline, international tensions would lessen and the practice of politically motivated sanctions would become history.
Recently, the OPCW-UN Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM) has presented to the UN Security Council its third report, in which it concluded that the Syrian Armed Forces were allegedly involved in two cases of use of chemical weapons in Syria. While appreciating the significant amount of work done by the JIM and its experts, conclusions drawn by its Leadership Panel are hardly convincing. It has become obvious that due to objective reasons it had very little chance to conduct an effective investigation. One of the main problems was lack of access to the locations due to the dire security situation on the ground.
Some in the West have recently ratcheted up their rhetoric about Russia’s “nuclear sabre-rattling” in Europe. Indeed, the USSR did deploy nuclear weapons in the then countries of the Warsaw Treaty Organization. However, it was in response to the deployment of the similar US arms in the NATO countries, and later the Soviet nukes were completely withdrawn from Europe. Moreover, Russia has reduced its arsenal of non-strategic nuclear weapons (NSNW) by three-fourths, transferred them back home and stored within its own territory.
Seeking solutions to the problem of migrants and refugees, fleeing their homes due to wars and domestic armed conflicts, is one of the pressing issues on the international agenda. We share the common opinion that the most reliable way to successfully resolve the refugee crisis is to address the causes. A successful response to migration challenges requires, first of all, prevention and settlement of conflicts through political means, coordinated efforts of the global community in political, socio-economic, humanitarian and other areas, as well as building interaction between humanitarian aid and development assistance. It is necessary to exclude external interference in internal issues by other countries, which turns civil conflicts into proxy wars.
A grave humanitarian situation in Aleppo today is the most topical issue within the context of settlement in Syria. Over past two weeks, as the Syrian Government forces and Russian Air Force successfully resist the “Jabhat al-Nusra”-led offensive, there have been increased efforts by some media to distort the real situation in Aleppo. The terrorists, who seek to seize the whole city, are obviously not interested in a ceasefire and establishing humanitarian corridors for civilians caught up in the fighting.
However, a large-scale humanitarian operation is under way, conducted by the Syrian Government with Russia’s assistance.
The ASEAN countries remain Russia's primary focus in South-East Asia. Driven by the desire to have partners in developing trade and strengthening security in the region, Russia established relations with ASEAN in 1991 and in 1996 became a full-fledged dialogue partner. We accessed to the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia in 2004. A very important and powerful impetus was given to 20-year ASEAN-Russia cooperation after the Sochi Summit in May 2016.
Dr. Alexander Yakovenko: Basically, it was very important to understand where we stand in our relations with the EU. On the political side, we see a lot of difficulties. That has been the result of the policy of the EU in recent years; that is exactly what [Foreign Minister Sergey] Lavrov said. But there is another part of that, this is business. And most of the business people who are on the panel urged that something should be done in order to improve relations and send the right political signals. As one of the representatives said, ‘Europe and Russia are paying a very high price for the sanctions’. So, that was the main idea.
Planning to go to the Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF). It is a huge annual international conference on economic and business issues, held under the auspices of the President of the Russian Federation. The next Forum will be held on June 16 to 18 under the theme “Capitalizing on the New Global Economic Reality”.
On 22 May “United Russia” political party held primary elections, or primaries around the whole country. Nearly 9 million people chose to participate in this major event, which drew the line under a long and large-scale process launched by the party last year. For the first time in history a Russian political party organized such comprehensive and open to general electorate event. The voters had the opportunity to influence the choice of the “UR” candidates for upcoming parliamentary elections in September.
Russia attaches a great importance to the initiative on combating glorification of Nazism and will continue to put forward at the UN General Assembly sessions its draft resolution on “Combating glorification of Nazism and other practices that contribute to fuelling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance”. It is a traditional Russia's initiative which is widely supported by the United Nations member-states with growing number of countries co-sponsoring the resolution every year.
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